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Beautifully Ugly

Posted by Candace |

          I'd made a comment to my friend that she was "Beautifully Ugly" and she dang near cried! Needless to say, I don't think she got it, lol. I had been mulling over that very phrase several days before I'd spoken it. Initially it was of myself. The mess I'd become. The issues that had been brought to the forefront. The chaos of my life. That was the ugly.

          The beauty, however, is what makes the mess worth while. Purposed. Delicate and terrifying all in the same. It is the support and encouragement of family and friends. The ability to laugh in the middle of sorrow. The determination hope instills. The grace God gives to learn of and lean on him. The revelation at the end of the day that God brought you through what you thought impossible. And most overarching, the love that I feel walking with me on a path I've never traveled and a road he's already ventured upon.

                                                 
           The most breathtaking to see is the coming of a storm. How the clouds roil in ferocious, unnerving and unapologetic. Huge, fluffy, dark mounds of cotton hide the baby blues, sun rays or twinkling stars. The site can completely overtake you with dread and fear if you can't see the light behind the darkness. See what you know is there in spite of how it looks. Know that every storm moves by nature. It may seem like it will be there forever but what you don't realize is that each moment it looks to be still, it has already moved, shifted, changed. You can never stay under the same part of a storm. It's impossible. That, in itself, should give us hope.

         Sometimes the rain from a storm can be the most refreshing time of your life. The sweet smell of the water. The bigger the drops, the more it washes away. In the rain, when you've decided to stand in it without reserve, you don't worry about mediocre things. The stress of making sure your hair and makeup are done. The worry of wearing the finest fabrics. The itch to run for cover. The care of others watching. Beauty can happen in the rain. Be born, refined and exposed clearly through the torrential weather.

It is there, where your vision is most blurred, God meets you.

         He wipes away every tear, washes away every stain, and nourishes your heart and soul with his water, the Living Water. Isaiah 44:3 says:

"For I will pour out water to quench your thirst and
to irrigate your parched fields.
And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessing on your children."

         Such sweet words in a time when you may feel you have nothing left. A desert. A drying river. A cropless field. Take heart, oh my soul and know that God will rain down and water my fields, restore the rivers in my heart and allow the fruit of my labor to be more than enough for the generations after me. In this moment, standing in the rain, I lift my eyes toward you and allow your rain to wash all that is not of you, away. I may look completely uncouth to the eye, hair soggy, clothes drenched and mascara running but as ugly as my appearance may look on the outside, something beautiful is taking place on the inside. For my dear sister, who I mentioned in the beginning, this is what I meant when I said you were, we are... 

Beautifully Ugly

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